IITs, IIMs, IISc to get foreign faculty this year

Kolkata: Some of India's leading academic institutions like IITs and IIMs will have foreign faculty members this year under the national GIAN (Global Initiative of Academic Networks) programme.

IIT-Kharagpur has been selected as the national coordinator for collaborating with institutions like IITs, IIMs, IISc, NITs etc. under GIAN.

Professor P P Chakrabarti, Director, IIT-Kharagpur, said they have planned 500 such courses by foreign teachers in the year 2015-16 at an outlay of about Rs 35 crore.

The evolving scheme would initially include participation of foreign faculty in institutes as distinguished, adjunct, visiting faculty or professors of practice and others would participate in delivering short or semester-long courses.

Such courses would primarily be for credit and made available by the host institution for participation from other institutions. Chakrabarti said that their flagship programme, the International Summer Winter Term (ISWT), has been adopted at the national-level.

Through ISWT, international experts would teach in India, they would be motivated to work on problems related to India and also develop high-quality course material in niche areas, both through video and print, which could be used by a larger body of students and teachers, IIT officials said.

The programme would also document and develop new pedagogic methods in emerging topics of national and international interest. The programme would be implemented by the GIAN implementation committee chaired by Vinay Sheel Oberoi, Secretary, Department of Higher Education under the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development, the officials said.

GIAN would create avenues for possible collaborations in research with international faculty and international students' visits. It would also enable promotion of interaction and learning niche subject areas for students of different institutes and universities and provide opportunity for technical persons from the Indian industry to improve understanding and update their knowledge in relevant areas.